← The Art & Business of Writing Podcast with Nicolas Cole
The Art & Business of Writing Podcast with Nicolas Cole
How to Sell Ghostwriting to Venture Capital and Private Equity Firms
00:23:20
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- [00:01]
Alex
Okay. Do we have Sebastian? Sebastian, you have two questions here. And this was like my whole sweet spot, so I'm excited to, to jam on this.
- [00:09]
Sebastian
Hey, how you doing?
- [00:10]
Alex
Good. How are you? Happy Thursday.
- [00:13]
Sebastian
Not bad. You too.
- [00:14]
Alex
All right, so I see these two questions around writing for VCs and private equity firms. Give me, I skimmed it, but any other context do you want me to have.
- [00:26]
Sebastian
No, I can, I can summarize them both for you. So the first one is around keeping the frame on a sales call. So this will be my first sales call in tomorrow since starting pga. To give you a bit of context, I've been writing for VCs for about 18 months and joined PGA about three, three months ago. So for the most part I've been doing lots of sales calls, but not very structured. So I'm looking forward to a little bit more clarity around that. I guess my concern going into it is that I'm not going to be able to hold the frame because she's also asking about ghost writing articles. And so I've got in with the whole EEC set up, sent her the loom and got the date in the diary. But I think what I'm concerned about is falling away from the structure that we've talked about in module, whatever it is, and not being able to show the value of articles. So should we start there and then I can talk you through the other one as well later on?
- [01:25]
Alex
Sure. So, yeah, for context, if you're not familiar, I mean, this, this was a huge part of my sweet spot when I was running my agency. Like 20% or more of our clients. It fell into the VC, VC partnership, private equity, like that whole world. So I, I know it very well. Also like talking to the marketing managers of those funds or of those companies. Right. So here's there, there's two different ways of thinking about this. When, when you're walking in with one service and they, you're sort of anticipating either ahead of the call or on the call and they want something different. Okay. When you're in that situation, there's two ways of playing that. One way is on the call. You're essentially asking questions to try and figure out, like, forget the service for a second. The service is the process. How we get there is not really what's important. You're asking questions to understand what do they really care about? What are they trying to achieve? Okay. So for example, and I know because I ran into this a gazillion times, for example, they're probably saying we want to write articles that position our investors as thought leaders in this space. And we want to, like, put our thoughts out there so that we're seen as the expert, which increases the likelihood that a startup wants to take our money opposed to someone else's money for just, like, quick crash course for everyone here. I know it seems like if you're an investor, like, you have all the power, and then the company has to, like, beg you for money. And in a lot of cases, it's actually the opposite. The startup or the company is trying to decide, do I want to take money from this firm or this firm? And the way they make that decision comes down to, well, how helpful do you think they can be? So I'll give everyone here a really easy example. Drop in the chat. Are you familiar with Alex Hormozi? Okay. He basically has his own private equity firm now. All right, so pretend you're a startup and you go, I need half a million dollars in order to build this new software product. And you talk to one investor and they're like, yep, we do these days, all day long. Half a million, no problem. We'll cut you the check. That's the benefit. Then you go talk to Hormozi and he goes, half million, no problem. I do these deals all day long. But by the way, when I work with you, there's actually this. This system that I implement in all of the different companies that I work with. And so I could help implement that into your company. I've seen it work over and over and over again. I could help educate you on it. Right. Whose money are you taking? You're taking Hormozy's every single time. Right? And so these firms, these VC firms, these private equity firms are competing against each other. They're competing against each other to try and explain to companies and startups why you should take their money opposed to someone else's money. There's a term for it called smart money or dumb money. Right. Dumb money is like, I write you a check and I don't do anything. Right. Smart money is I write you the check.
- [04:34]
Sebastian
Sure.
- [04:34]
Alex
But I mentor you, I help you recruit, I help you stress test. If you're about to go hire a cto, are you hiring the right cto? Right. So just little crash course on that world for. For everyone here, if you're not familiar. Okay, so going back, they're probably like, we want to write articles because we want to position ourselves as thought leaders in our industry because we want to increase the perception that we're valuable. So that startups or companies take money from us opposed to one of our competitors. Right, okay, so. And you're probably really familiar with that, Sebastian. I'm assuming it's like you've heard that you get that, right?
- [05:09]
Sebastian
Yeah.
- [05:10]
Alex
So if that's what they say, the two ways of playing it are either a, you go to them and you say, okay, now that I know your goal, now that I know what you're trying to achieve, I just want to educate you and let you know that today, yeah, articles can help accomplish that, but actually an EEC would accomplish your goal even, even better. So you have to first anchor to what do they care about? And then explain to them why the, the thing that you're offering actually is a better way of a, of accomplishing that goal. When I was building my agency, half the people I got on the phone with said they wanted to write a book. And by the end of the call, they no longer wanted to write a book. They wanted to write articles because that was what I was selling. And I explained to them, hey, if you write articles, here are all the benefits of doing that. You shouldn't start with a book. Right. So you can do the same exact thing with an eec. Okay. The other way of handling it is they go, we really want to write articles. Yeah, I understand. You explained everything that we just talked about. That's great, I hear you, but, sorry, at the end of the day, what we really want to do is we want to write articles. Well, you can do the same thing just in reverse. And you go, okay, no problem. I totally understand that you want to start with that. Actually there's a cool benefit. So then you take the thing that they're saying they want to do and you mirror back to them. Why that's actually an amazing idea and complements the thing that you're, you're offering. So you would go, that's actually a really great idea. And a different strategy that you might consider is writing a handful of these thought leadership articles. And then when we see which ones perform the best, we could group them into an educational email course so that every person on the site ends up reading them in an order. So you, same thing, you take the thing they care about and you go, fine, we can start with that. But actually there's a way where what you're talking about, what I'm talking about, works really well together. Does that make sense?
- [07:24]
Sebastian
Yeah, that's really good. Thank you. I'm just trying to think how that translates into a call then. So usually you kind of walk through the problem? Do we stick to that as an opener and basically kind of repeat the EC and then start this conversation? Is that how it should look?
- [07:39]
Alex
Yeah. I've done this exact call a thousand times, so I can tell you exactly how it goes. You both hop on. Marketing manager is like, hey, what's up? Where you tuning in? You're like, oh, I'm tuning in here. Where are you tuning in? Right? And then you're like, so, thanks so much for hopping on the call. Would love to know more. Like, what. What are. What are you struggling with? Or what's your biggest focus these days? Anything that you're really looking to ramp up, like, what. What's the priority? They're like, well, we really want to do this. You go, oh, that's really interesting. Why do you want to do that? You're like, oh, because we want these things. Okay, cool. Have you tried anything in the past? Like, is there anything that you're running into? Yeah, we tried working with a writer. They didn't understand the client's voice. You know, whatever. They're going to tell you a little answer in there. So you have to hear, you have to listen for it. And then you're like, okay, cool. So. And then you mirror back. So this is the goal. This is the thing that you care about. This is the problem that you're experiencing. And it sounds like via email, whatever you wanted to accomplish that with articles. And they're like, yeah, we'd really like to do this with articles. Like, okay, well, I just want to educate you that articles is one way, but there's actually a newer and different way that is just as effective. It's called an educational email course. Do you know anything about it? No, I don't know anything about it. Okay, cool. Let me walk you through it. And then after that happens, one of those two roads is going to emerge. They're either going to gravitate to it and go, that's really interesting. I actually think that that could work well for us. Or they're going to push back and be like, no, I think we just want articles. And then depending on which way it goes, you just either go one way or you go the other way. Does that make sense?
- [09:16]
Sebastian
Sounds good. Thank you. I'll give that a shot tomorrow. Looking forward to getting back in the saddle?
- [09:21]
Alex
Yeah, I mean, all of these things. I can't stress enough. I say this in some way probably every single Thursday hot seat call. I can't stress enough how much when people ask for something, they usually don't know why they're asking for it. And so your job on the call is to ask questions and to, and to not only better understand yourself, but help them clarify their own thinking. Why are you asking for articles? Because the vast majority of the time that person is asking for that thing because they heard someone else do it and they feel like that's the thing that they should be doing and they don't necessarily know, well, is that the best way to accomplish my goal? You know, so, so it's worth, like that's the point of the call, is to dig into that. Why are you asking for the thing that you're asking for?
- [10:16]
Sebastian
Yeah, that's really helpful. I think that's particularly the case when you're speaking to a marketing manager rather than a business owner because they're not thinking with that ownership mindset. And I suppose that leads into the other question, which is just around pitching to VC and PE in general. I'd love to hear your thoughts on how it differs to going to kind of a traditional B2B business. And I think the real crux of it is that as you say, a lot of them come back to me and say, look, we're absolutely fine, we've got LPs coming out of our ears, whereas no business is ever going to tell you, sorry, we don't need more customers. So I think you just have to be a bit more creative. But I wonder what your experience has been there.
- [10:53]
Alex
Yeah, that's exactly it. I'm going to give you a more advanced answer for everyone here. This is why I give the disclaimer at the beginning. Sometimes these things lean more advanced. This is a great example of it. Sebastian, this is a little bit more for you, everyone else, this is a learning opportunity. But like this is not necessarily broad advice. Okay, so that's my big * disclaimer. VC and private equity firms don't give a shit about direct response marketing. So what I mean by that is like they don't care about tracking emails, they don't care about converting leads. They care, they don't care about having a clean CRM, all of the conventional marketing things. They don't care. And the reason they don't care is because so much of those industries are predicated on high level reputation. Deals are done over dinner. They're not typically done via dm. Right. And it's very, very, very high status. So there's, there's a completely different set of rules that applies to that. Okay, now your point on it sounds like you need to get a Little more creative is exactly right. And I'll tell you, I think it's the answer. But I, I will tell you, this is my opinion on where all of this is going. If you look at incubators like yc, if you look at people like Paul Graham, if you look at companies like Alexandra's Acquisition.com, there is absolutely a trend to money. I'm saying money as banks, vc, private equity, there is a trend of money realizing that their only way to really differentiate themselves is the amount of education they can give to the companies that they invest in. And you see that trend everywhere. Okay, and so for you, or I'll say this, if I was starting a new ghostwriting agency tomorrow and I was pitching this sort of person, I would anchor all of my services around, educating them on that. I would, I would say directly to them, like, hey, whatever we're talking about, you know, there's a trend that I've been noticing for a while and I feel like it's going to continue. More and more venture capital firms or private equity firms know that the way that they're going to earn trust with companies or startups is there has to be some sort of educational element. The founder has to feel like they're getting something more than just money. They're getting knowledge, they're getting frameworks, they're getting systems. And so the best way for a VC firm or a private equity firm to market themselves is not really to quote, unquote, market themselves. Money from a bank is the same as money from a VC is the same from money from a private equity firm. It's just money. Right? The way that you market yourself is by putting together assets, which could be articles, could be an eec, could be social content, could be a newsletter, could be a course that you host on the site. That's what acquisition.com is doing now. You know, I'm pretty sure that's what YC is doing now. And so you help them understand that and be like, I'm not just helping you write articles, I'm helping you clarify frameworks and systems that you want to educate companies on at scale as to why they should trust you. They're going to get more than just money from you. I promise. If you say that on 10 sales calls, you are going to close three to five of them. That is like the magic. Like that is music to their ears.
- [14:37]
Sebastian
That's really powerful. Thank you. And yeah, it really resonates with. I had one client once say, all money is green. And that really stuck with me and I think that's, that's aligns with what you're saying. Do you mind just clarifying the last thing you said? Helping clarify frameworks and systems and why they should trust you?
- [14:54]
Alex
So, like, for example, if, you know, let's just look this up. Y Combinator. I wanted to say I saw this recently, but I could. I might be making this up. Okay. Gary Tan is a great example of this, actually. Yeah, it was this. So they launched this series called YC Library. And I mean, this is just like content, you know, I mean, it's just content organized. But this is really, the idea is like, if you go to. And it's probably not going to be on this site, it's. You're going to find these videos on YouTube or you're, you're going to see Gary Tan write about it on X or whatever. Right. But if you love following Gary Tan on X, I'll just pull it up. The likelihood that you want to take money from him, why is he not showing up there? Oh, I spelled it wrong, right? He's got half a million followers. Like, he writes about tech trends and new product updates and future of AI and everything all day long. Right. The reason that he does that, though, is because when someone feels like they're learning from him, the likelihood that they want to take money from him is way higher than someone else. The irony about that comment, where it's like, all money is green. People say that, thinking that the point of that phrase, including the people who say it, they think the point of that phrase is like, you know, our money is just as good as everyone else's money. And you're actually saying the opposite, which is, no, your. Your money doesn't have to be as good as everyone else's. It could be way better. It could be way more valuable. And so the more that you help them clarify, like, I bet you Gary Tan's philosophy on building startups is very different than Nikita Bears. Right? And so as a company, it's like, well, which philosophy do I want to subscribe to? So that's what you help them. That's, that's like the unlock. Once they understand that, they're like, holy shit, we need 10 writers. Because we need, we need to get all of our ideas out into the world. You know what I mean?
- [17:24]
Sebastian
Yeah. I've also experienced the opposite problem where I've worked with VC clients and they.
- [17:28]
Alex
Just haven't had any good ideas all day long. I've worked with companies that have billions of dollars under management and they can't explain to me a three step process on how to hire. Yeah, but like that's, that is where the art comes in is like you have to figure out how to work with what they have, you know, and, and the more of these writing frameworks that you soak up, like for example, just by understanding how to make something tangible versus intangible, how to use words, like instead of calling it an idea, I'm going to call it a blueprint. Like just little mechanisms like that. You can take very mediocre ideas and you can make them seem really impactful. X is full of them. We see them all day long. Like people write the same that everyone already knows, but if you package it in a different way, you're like, oh my God, that's so different. Right? So you have to, you have to work with what they give you. But that's the whole art is like asking questions and figuring out how to help them.
- [18:36]
Sebastian
Thanks. This has been really useful. Just final thing, when we're talking about helping them to clarify their frameworks and systems, are you saying then that, look, I'm going to help you to put together this content that potential founders can read, but also I'm going to help you work out what goes on on the inside once you invest, how do you nurture them and what kind of philosophy or content do you give to them then? Is it about thinking about both sides?
- [19:05]
Alex
I mean, you could certainly bring that up as a long term opportunity. Okay, if I was working with a VC firm, that's what I, I wouldn't say we should do that tomorrow, but I would say, you know, long term, every time you invest in a company, wouldn't it be cool if you gave them access to a private school community or a private circle community where you had all your proprietary thinking on how you build startups and how you hire? Like, wouldn't that be such a cool value add to give to companies? They'd be like, fuck yeah. And you're like, cool, if you ever want to pay me to build that, I'd be happy to help you with that, you know, but start, start with the more immediate and easier problem, which is like we just need to package up your insights and I'll just, just to make this really tangible. Like what I'm talking about is pretend you're talking to a VC firm that exclusively invests seed stage checks in AI productivity startups. Okay? Like hyper specific. They're like, we write 100k checks for this type of company on the call. You're like, great. So you want to attract more of these types of companies and you want to separate yourself from everyone else. Right? You don't want to be dumb money, you want to be smart money. So wouldn't it be cool? It's a golden phrase for everyone, by the way, is wouldn't it be cool? It opens the door for, you know, put on your imagination hat for a second. Wouldn't it be cool if we had an EEC that spoke directly to that type of founder and helped them solve one of the biggest problems that, you know, that they're probably experiencing? Like, for example, when you invest in these companies, do you see over and over and over again that they all struggle with this thing at this stage? They're like, yeah, all of them have no clue how to hire an HR manager. Great. What if we built an EEC that helped them solve that problem? Do you think the likelihood that they would want to work with you opposed to some other person who isn't helping them solve problems goes up or down like that? That's really the conversation you're trying to have with them?
- [21:13]
Sebastian
Really? Thanks very much. Yes, it's been really encouraging. I sometimes find that this is a hard industry to be doing this in, but I think there is a lot of opportunity if you can frame it the right way.
- [21:22]
Alex
I mean, you just summarized every opportunity in life, right? Is like, I feel like it's, it's hard, but if I crack it, there's endless opportunity. Like, the fact that it's hard is what makes it so lucrative. Yeah.
- [21:35]
Sebastian
Yeah, fair enough. Good stuff. Thank you so much. This has been really helpful.
- [21:40]
Alex
Awesome. These are great, great questions and I know, I know the nuances of this world really well. So if you go and you have follow ups, just let us know because we'd love to keep jamming on it.
- [21:50]
Sebastian
Thanks. Appreciate it. I'm sure I will do.
- [21:52]
Alex
Awesome. Thanks, Sebastian. Was that helpful for everyone else too? I, I know that was a bit of a rabbit hole, but I do think that, you know, understanding how these different industries work, again, it all goes back to having an information advantage, right? Like when you understand the nuances of how venture capital works, or how private equity works, or how early stage investing work, how taking a company public works, or how how hiring in this industry works. Right? How managing regulations in this industry works. When you understand those things, the likelihood that people in that industry want to work with you just goes through the roof. Because you speak their language, you understand the nuances of what they're going through. Right. So that's why I enjoy on these calls, by the way. I know it might feel like a tangent sometimes, but I think it's important to just sort of brain dump, like the, these little nuances that I've learned in each of these different industries. Because for anyone here, when, if and when you run into that and you're able to recognize it and you're able to speak to it, it gives you such a tremendous advantage relative to, you know, I'm just a writer and I know nothing about private equity, but let me know what blog posts you want. Right. You could, you can see how you have no pricing power, you have no control over the relationship at that point.